“Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood.” –Anonymous

We as a society have really lost the power of subtlety. It could be because we have lost the patience to unravel it. We receive far more information on a daily basis than our ancestors a hundred years ago could even process. Most of this information is not subtle. It is blasted at us with bells and whistles to get our attention. The news channels do not just report the news, they also tell us what to think about it. Movies no longer imply that a couple is about to “make whoopee”, they show us the scenes in the trailer. In a few generations we have gone from Marilyn Monroe standing over a vent to Britney Spears getting out of a limousine.

With all of these changes, we have forgotten what it means to be “suggestive.” This is particularly true in restaurants. A few decades ago, corporate restaurants determined that they wanted their servers to be sales people. The also determined that they had no interest in paying for the training necessary to actually accomplish this. Instead, they decided to teach their servers to use adjectives and “suggestive selling.” One of the first posts on this blog was declaring my disdain for the overuse of adjectives. I recently realized that I never discussed my equal dislike for the corporate restaurant incarnation of “suggestive selling.”

“Leaders don’t force people to follow-they invite them on a journey.” -Charles S. Lauer

The fundamental question behind the desire to manage rather than lead is, “How can I get people to do what I want them to do if they do not want to do it?” Failure to answer this question is what leads so many managers to lead by force and threat of force. The answer to this question is simple. You must create a vision for your staff, which allows them to achieve what they want by achieving what you want. This is what I will refer to as a shared goal, vision, or sense of purpose. I have discussed the idea of selling a sense of purpose in the past. Today I want to go deeper into how to develop it.

(Note: I am enjoying the final day of my mini vacation. Having a great trip. Met my favorite musician and a personal hero yesterday. Today I will be taking the scenic drive through the Ozark hills of Central Missouri. This is a post I wrote a couple months ago. Not my standard fare, but I hope you all enjoy it.)

Some nights I just love waiting tables. They are the nights where everything goes right. The guests are congenial and friendly. You make connections with your tables and they are happy. They take your recommendations and commend you on them afterwards. It almost doesn’t seem like work.

When I started my first serving job years ago I worked for a company I will affectionately refer to as “Five Four.” That isn’t what it says on the signs out front, but it what we all called it. My first day a manager who introduced himself as “CSV” told me that if I couldn’t figure out how to carry three plates at once by the end of the shift, I was fired. I wasn’t sure if he was telling the truth, but I learned to carry three plates. A couple days later I was training with a guy named “Timmy” who never wrote down his orders. I asked him why and he said, “Only rookies write down orders.”

There are any number of managers who would read that last sentence and be horrified. The thought of not writing down orders puts fear in the heart of managers who are responsible for the rise in food costs related to misrung food. A former boss once put it this way; “I would rather have a stubby pencil than a sharp mind.” The debate on whether or not to write down orders has pretty much been won by the side of managers who want to eliminate mistakes. I do not disagree with them, but I also do not write down orders.

Yesterday’s post on extra charges for the various items a guest requests caused me to ponder on a larger scale. It is remarkably common to hear guests say, “I could buy that steak/wine/etc at the store for half that much.” This is the same principle as walking into a car dealership and demanding a price based on the total price of the steel, glass, and plastic contained in the car. In both cases, the price of production goes far beyond the cost of the raw materials. Next week, I will be addressing in detail the difference between the actual cost of an item as simple as a burger and also the actual price of production. When the cost of labor and overhead is factored in, a burger is far less profitable than the average consumer would imagine.

First, it is necessary to establish as a premise that food is a commodity. A meal is comprised of many components each of which has a finite supply. There are only so many acres of wheat or corn being produced. There are also only so much beef, poultry, pork, and seafood being brought to market. This means that supply is more of less the same and therefore demand is what determines the price restaurants pay. The commodity we are all most familiar with is oil. When demand for oil rises worldwide the price rises as well. This is followed shortly by a rise in the price of gasoline. We as consumers understand why this affects gas prices, but rarely do we relate it to restaurants.

It’s “Shark Week” from all indications. The time when a certain television network rolls out a weeks worth of shark related shows that everyone feels the need to watch and discuss over dinner at my restaurant. Personally I would love to see the same principle used on “National Debt Week” or “Health Insurance Reform Week” or “We Are Still Fighting Two Wars Week.” But I digress. I guess sharks are more interesting. Which is why this post is on foil sharks rather than foil preexisting conditions.

My post on the foil swan received a great deal of comments from people I have met that read the blog. It is by no means the only foil animal I have done over the years. Swans are pretty easy to make though. I intended to make it a recurring feature of the blog. Then my roommate used the last of the foil for cooking or something completely unimportant like that. Well, a new roll has been procured and today I give you the foil shark.

Rule Five: Always recommend what is in the guest’s best interest, not yours.

(Note: There are many hyperlinks today that will send you to posts were I have previously addressed specifically issues that I address in this post.)

This is the second time in two days I have sat down to write this post. Yesterday, I got caught up in a tangent which I think serves as an important preface to this post. It even inspired a comment immediately that proved its accuracy. In the preface, I discuss how restaurant companies have encouraged servers to focus on upselling and thus significantly damaged the relationship between servers and their guests.